James Gutensohn, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Management (DEM), plated a crucial role in the public effort to save South Beach from private developers.
The well-kept secret of the Army's experimental base at Katama during the fall and early winter of 1943 is disclosed at last, in this issue of the Gazette.
Ten miles of heavy pipe were delivered, with other equipment, beginning in August, and during the following months five one-mile lengths of pipe were laid in the ocean with the aid of tugs, and welded together into an experimental pipeline under conditions similar to those which would be encountered in laying a gasoline supply line under the English Channel.
Workers have already begun forming new dunes on South Beach’s Left Fork, using dredged sand from Katama Bay and Herring Creek. Both water bodies had filled with sand after December and January’s storms.
Long used as a lifeguard building, the Donnelly house was the last in a long history of South Beach fishing shacks.